Green Fleet

Calif. City Switches to Renewable Natural Gas

August 31, 2017
• by Staff

Photo courtesy of City of Long Beach

The City of Long Beach, Calif., began dispensing renewable natural gas (RNG) at its new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station in August. The time-fill fueling station, built and maintained by TruStar Energy, opened in May and is being used for the city’s fleet of refuse trucks and street sweepers.

“By powering fleets with renewable fuels, the city is looking at a potential reduction of more than 7,700 tons of carbon emissions per year,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “Long Beach remains a committed leader in its efforts to ensure a zero emissions future.”

This station includes fully integrated fuel compression equipment, backup power, and a time-fill dispensing system capable of providing a ten-hour time-fill capacity for 80 trucks and 20 sweepers, enabling them to refuel overnight and be ready to provide services to residents the next day.

“When factoring its production, transportation, and use, the carbon footprint for renewable natural gas is the lowest of any vehicle fuel over the course of its life cycle,” said Fleet Services Bureau Manager Dan Berlenbach, CPFP.

The city's CNG fleet consists of 29 units — 23 refuse trucks and six sweepers. An additional 13 CNG refuse trucks are slated to arrive in the next few weeks. The city's goal is to replace all 98 refuse trucks and sweepers with CNG vehicles as the older units are cycled out. This is estimated to take up to three years, said Oliver Cruz, fuel operations program manager.

He added that the cost of RNG and CNG to the city are the same due to environmental credits, and RNG costs could decrease once the environmental credits are monetized.

Since 2015, the city has been using renewable fuels for its fleet, such as renewable diesel and renewable liquid natural gas. Renewable fuels greatly reduce greenhouse gas and tailpipe emissions; cost the same or less than current fuels; and do not require any modifications to the city’s vehicles or fueling infrastructure, according to the city.

The new vehicles will annually consume approximately 36.8 million gallons of clean propane autogas, and many will be displacing fuels with higher emissions like gasoline and diesel, according to the Propane Education & Research Council.